The Tall Man

So my friend, Gory, came over last night to hang and my roomie decided to hang with us because she’s been sick for a few days and was feeling like shite and he & I were gonna watch movies. We go through my Netflix queue (which you know mostly consists of “sin, deviance, schoolgirls, zombies, T&A!, sinful dwarves” and so on and so forth) but came across this (they both breathed a sigh of relief at the normality of it) and I finally, finally watched The Tall Man. I think the majority of you all have seen this – I remember reading a whole bunch of blogs last year about it but you know me, always late to the game and never doing what the cool kids are doing. 😉 So now I give you my thoughts on The Tall Man.

FUCK YOU, TALL MAN, FUCK YOU.

Yeah, so, there it is. That pretty much sums it up. Of course, I’ve had about 12 hours to cool down because if you’d seen me right after I watched this piece of crap…well…Gory couldn’t stop laughing at my pure unadulterated vitriol. Sorry, Gory, some things make me very passionately happy or very passionately angry and this was one of the things that made me very passionately angry. Like almost throwing things angry.

Hi, I’m married to Justin Timberlake.

Look, I have nothing, absolutely NOTHING against Jessica Biel. I think she’s pretty super hot and once upon a time I was totally interested in how her career would turn out. Unfortunately, this is the first thing I’ve seen her in, in AGES (and if she’s done a whole bunch of indie movies that I’m unaware of, please let me know so I can watch them and wash the bad taste of THIS out of my mouth!), and this movie does her absolutely no favors because it’s basically one expression through out. Jessica Biel looks tortured, cries, look tortured again, cries and so on and so forth (okay, I suppose that could count for TWO expressions…). Dear Mrs. Timberlake, you had a somewhat promising career once – if you want to be known ever again as anything other than Justin Timberlake’s wife, please don’t do movies like this. Please do movies where you show a range of emotion, movies that are GOOD. Love, Me.

Even with that whole Silent Hill travesty in my past, Misty still thinks I’m pretty cool.

And this chick was in it and I dig her, even if she was in Silent Hill (another movie I do not love). And Ellen from Supernatural is featured here as well. The cast is good. That’s what makes the whole thing sadder. 😦

See the thing that made me so cranky was that:

1) I recall this being marketed as a horror movie. This is NOT a horror movie. It’s also not a thriller (oh it tries to fake you out by being a thriller for the first 30 minutes or so but it’s NOT). It’s a drama. In fact, I think my exact words when this was over were – “This is a movie someone made because they wanted to make a commentary on children’s places in society but they didn’t want to go the Christian drama route.” (Please note, I have nothing against Christianity or religion or anything like that when I say “Christian drama”, I’m referencing those movies like Fireproof and anything Kirk Cameron’s in. You know what I’m talking bout, right?)

2) I am all for suspension of disbelief but this movie asks me to push those boundaries WAYYYYY too far. Yes, even further than say believing there’s a sinful dwarf who along with his mother is kidnapping women and sexing them up. I can believe/disbelieve that. But this?? And I can’t say what I’m talking about in case you haven’t seen it because that would equal *SPOILERS* but if you have seen it you know what I’m talking bout right? “Hi, meet my adopted kid! Where did I adopt him from? Shut up, don’t ask questions.” WTF, movie, WTF?? That is one of the most ridiculous things I have seen in ages and I make it a habit to watch ridiculous things.

He’s not in this movie, obviously he is in Phantasm but this image keeps popping up and it’s cool!

So yeah. I hate this movie. I think it was terribly mis-marketed and completely beyond the realms of reality. So what do you guys think? Am I overreacting? Should I just chalk it up to a case of me being tired and having a really bad headache when I watched? Or did you all think it was as bad and anger inducing as I did?

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About mistylayne

I'm a Z movie loving, horror hound, Buffy quoting, Dr. Who watching, geekazoid and seeker of all things unusual. I'm a gypsy wanderer, lover of words, Wendy of the damned and all that jazz. What can I say? I'm complicated.

Got to disagree with you on this sorry Misty! I thought it was fantastic! It was never really marketed as a horror that I recall, I think people just assumed it would be due to it being directed from the Martyrs guy. I would definitely class it as a thriller, and it was very original with some great twists in my opinion. Biel was fantastic too, easily the best performance I’ve seen from her. BUT hey, movies are all about opinions, and it’s a shame you didn’t get as much from this as I did 🙂

Maybe it wasn’t marketed as horror in the UK, only the US? I mean, look at the trailer – it was definitely marketed as horror here. I liked the first twist where Biel isn’t what we think but after that it just went ridiculous. I mean, the thing that was happening could NEVER happen, you know? As for Biel, I liked her a LOT better in The Illusionist (which was pretty great imo). But yes, movies are all about opinions, lol. Thanks for stopping by and commenting Ty! (OMG, FACE OFF OVER THE TALL MAN!!!! :-p )

Yeah, I noticed I wasn’t able to respond to people’s responses on things also except via email.

Well, they tried to make that a horror supernatural thing but it wasn’t so it doesn’t actually count as horror. Also no. What they were doing might could happen in like a third world country but not a first world country. People tend to ask questions in first world countries like “Oh hey. Where did that kid come from?” :-p

You know, other than the Illusionist, I have this thing where I hate Jessical Biel and I just think she sucks as an actress. So I`m never going to watch this even without your full on hatred of it. But I`m going to take your word for it and not even give it a second glance 😉
Love your review! So fun to read..had me smiling at least! Now you should run off and watch something more awesome to get rid of all that anger 😉

Lol, I did not realize there was such Biel dislike in the world! But I’m super glad you aren’t going to watch this! And glad you liked the review, lol. I am so watching awesome now – go Lost Girl go! 😉 Thanks so much for dropping by and commenting. 🙂

Back in September 2012, when I did the review for this one I wrote “As with “Martyrs”, “The Tall Man” is not what it seems. It begins as a horror movie about an urban legend and then steers of into thriller territory, all the while juggling some social commentary and a payoff that desperately needs to be taken with more than a grain of salt but, in the end, the good outweighs the bad so I can’t recommend it highly enough (maybe have a double feature with ”Martyrs“?).”

I really liked this one. Not as much as I liked Laugier’s previous movie Martyrs but still – it was very entertaining and I have a knack for movies that are not what they seem.

And this is Biel’s career defining role – she acts the hell out of it and she is amazing here. Plus, she’s gorgeous, as usual.

I haven’t seen Martyrs yet but it’s in my queue, your comment makes me want to watch it less. 😦

I’m glad you liked it but it just was not for me. I got bored halfway through and actually wiki’d the ending to see what the hell was supposed to be happening. Just everything here from start to finish was done in a way that was wrong for me.

She’s pretty for sure but I’ve seen her do better stuff. Her expression never changed and while she was great at the crying and all, there usually needs to be some range of emotion happening to be considered fabulous.

Ah, well, maybe like I said to Ty, one day we can have a Face Off over The Tall Man. 🙂 Thanks for stopping by and commenting!!

It didn’t really grab my fancy when I thought it was a horror, so knowing it’s actually a drama puts me off completely. And I get it – movies that market themselves as something they really aren’t pisses me right the fuck off.

Yeah, mismarketing is one of my pet peeves. I don’t mind if there’s a little bit of trickery going on and all, a bit of mislead but this was like “Oh hi, watch this awesome horror movie that’ll scare your socks off…oh wait! Haha, it’s really a drama about family and society! Gotcha!” SO infuriating.

Hi Misty!! You know that I totally ❤ you : ) I just got to reading this and these comments and I don't think you'll like Martyrs. In fact, I think you'll hate it (but I could be wrong) – just offering up some advice in my ❤ way.

As for this thing, I think this looks absolutely STUPID and I doubt I will EVER see it.

I actually enjoyed this, Misty. I was kind of glad it turned out to be something I thought it wasn’t. I felt it may have been a bit mis-leading in it’s marketing but it didn’t really bother me in the grand scheme of things. Sorry you didn’t dig it. About Martyrs. It is a rough watch and I feel it’s a tad overrated but to each his own. I think you won’t be missing out that much if you skipped on it. Your review was hella funny too! Good job, hermana!

Well, I can’t win them all. 😉 Nah, I’m glad you enjoyed it, Vic. 🙂 I just don’t like movies that are trying to hard to make social commentary – and this one felt like it was overtrying. Plus I’m one of those annoying people who really takes it personally when a movie misleads – “Why Jessica Biel?? Why did you do this to me?? Did I not watch you on 7th Heaven??” ;-p

Yeah, I’m torn about Martyrs now. Hearing it’s a rough watch makes me want to know in what way exactly because there are certain scenarios that I am very sensitive to due to past experiences and I have trouble watching movies with those types scenarios and if it’s that sort of thing, I don’t want to watch. I think I’m slowly leaning more and more towards skipping though so hearing I won’t be missing much if I do makes me feel better about it.

And thanks!! Thanks (as always) for stopping by and leaving such a great comment! 🙂

I can’t disagree about the social commentary bit. I’m glad you are skipping on Martyrs. It’s quite a downer. Watch a happy flick instead! 🙂 And of course, like always, it’s my pleasure to stop in and give my two cents. Take care, chica! 🙂

funny, I was JUST having a conversation with someone about this movie and they were attempting to convince me that it was so good. I doubted it from the beginning, but I came to your site and saw this! haha. Thanks for the review!

I kind of hated this movie for the last 30 minutes, but I hated it even more for trying to wind people up with some kind of class war insinuations. Luckily enough people don’t seem to have watched it for it to have caused much of a problem, but really, in the U$ we don’t need any help being mad at each other right now. And yeah, it was totally mis-marketed in this country.